It’s almost time, American Horror Story fans. On Thursday, Ryan Murphy promises that viewers will finally know the title of the anthology series’s seventh season, after months of cryptic hints—and ahead of the reveal, the horror maestro shared one final clue on his Instagram. All we can say is, not the bees!

Wicker Man jokes might immediately come to mind, but there are actually a lot of layers to this image. First, however, a quick recap of what we know so far: the season will, somehow, be about the 2016 election, and its action will begin on election night. Evan Peters will return, alongside Sarah Paulson and Adina Porter, as well as newcomers including Colton Haynes and Billie Lourd. Peters, for what it’s worth, will definitely have blue hair. Twisty the Clown, who ascended to some dream-like heaven along with Elsa Mars in Season 4, will also come back, at least as a legendary comic-book character, or perhaps as some kind of Freddy Krueger-like nightmare manifestation. Also, ball gags.

Now, back to the bees! First, it should be noted that the photo Murphy posted was not taken on set; it appears to be a stock photo taken at a bee-bearding competition. And although the Nicolas CageWicker Man remake is as memorable as it is meme-able, there’s actually one other horror film involving bees that might be even more relevant: Candyman. The 1992 film follows a Chicago graduate student named Helen who investigates the popular legend of the Candyman. According to local legend, the Candyman was the son of a slave who fell in love with and fathered a child with a white woman. Her father set a lynch mob against him; they slathered him in honey and allowed bees to sting him to death. According to the urban myth, his malevolent spirit could be summoned by anyone who chants his name in a mirror five times. Sound familiar?

The bees seem significant for two reasons: first of all, the freaky image seems to jibe with other phobia-centric images Murphy has teased over the past few months, including the elephant-faced clown and the trypopobia-triggering faces. Combine that with the image that seems to include some cult-like imagery, and perhaps you’ve got some kind of grand statement on how fear can be used to control minds and shift elections, or . . . something. But there’s also another, less depressing bit of potential to be mined from these bees: if you’re willing to crawl way out on a limb with me, they might just hint at some of the inter-season connections to come.

As one Reddit user has already pointed out, Murphy has already referenced Candyman before. Back in Season 2, that film’s piano theme played as Lana Winters (played by Sarah Paulson) escaped Briarcliff and Oliver Thredson. We already know that this season will have significant ties to Season 4, Freakshow, as Twisty the Clown is returning. But it’s worth remembering that Season 2 and Season 4 already share connective tissue. Given that Murphy has also shared a photo of a landmark location in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it seems safe to bet that several seasons’ worth of material and characters could easily converge back in the great state of Massachusetts. (That seems to be where every A.H.S. thread intertwines: Asylum’s Briarcliff Manor is located there; the Harmons from Season 1 originally lived there before moving to Los Angeles; Queenie, who appeared in Seasons 3 and 5, is also a descendant of Tituba, a slave who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials and who was also from—you guessed it—Massachusetts. Also, Elsa Mars originally performed in the Boston circus.)

But back to Lana for a second. She already returned in Season 6, as a sort of Barbara Walters figure. And if this season is about the election, it’s easy to imagine Sarah Paulson returning to play this anthology’s ultimate survivor once more. (Sure, she’s aged a bit, but she’s still feisty.) If the image really is referencing Candyman, that would make a decent amount of sense, which at this point is all we ask of American Horror Story. But does this mean that the character could meet a fate similar to that of Helen’s in Candyman? (Spoiler alert: Helen gets killed and joins the Candyman in death after it’s implied that she is the descendant of his first love. As he tells her, “It was always you, Helen.”) Everyone meets their maker eventually, but here’s hoping that good ol’ Lana Banana makes it out (mostly) unscathed.